Pan fried fish with lemon, caper and avocado salad

Another great dinner.

This is another meal my FiL joined us for - so it was only right that we paired it with 2012 Watershed Savignon Blanc Semillion from the Margaret River in WA.

Substitutions / Omissions / Deletions:

This was one of the more difficult menu items to shop for - on our original shopping day, we could not find endive, witlof or radicchio at all, and I scoured half a dozen supermarkets and green grocers from Waurn Ponds to Newcomb to Corio (while in the area for other errands) without any luck. Finally, I came across baby endive at the Pakington Strand Woolies the day before we were planning to make this meal.

I was looking through the salad items in the fridge to find a substitute for the other items, when my partner discovered that the avocado we had was beyond saving. As we were missing so many ingredients for the salad, I ran out to the supermarket to grab another avo, and was delighted to discover witlof at the same supermarket.

We ended up making the salad without the radicchio - it meant the meal didn't look quite as colourful as the pic in the magazine.

Rather than purchase fresh red snapper for this meal, we used some nile perch fillets we had in the freezer.

The only other omission was for FiL - he abhors fennel in all its forms, so we didn't crust his fish before cooking.

The main ingredients for our salad - baby endive, witlof, avocado and lemon.

Prep tips:

I started grinding the coriander and fennel seeds in a small mortar and pestle, before I remembered we had been given a small silver Turkish spice grinder by the in-laws after one of their many trips abroad. This made quick work of the seeds. If you don't have a spice grinder, you could always try using a coffee grinder, or mini blender to speed up the process.

Things to do differently next time:

The things I'd do differently next time are really so much to do with the cooking, but more with the logistics of the ingredients. We didn't end up doing this meal until almost a week after we went shopping. In the magazine, it is the first meal of the week, but as we aren't big fish eaters (with the exception of salmon for me, and seafood for my partner), we left this until later in the week. The next time we go shopping and it has avocado on the list, we would check which menu item had the avocado, and then decide whether to buy it on the weekend, or pick it up later in the week. 

Also, when I took the fish out of the freezer to defrost, I took out more than we needed as I thought it was all in the same packet. Too much fish was defrosted, and as I said my partner and I aren't big fans of fish fillets so eating fish again for dinner after this meal isn't really something we want to do. Luckily, my partner has a plan to make some Thai fish cakes with the leftover fish.

Summary:

Taste - The quote of the night came from FiL, who commented "With meals like this, who needs to go out to eat!" FiL really enjoyed his fried Nile Perch, sans spices, and loved the addition of whole lemon wedges in the salad. 

My partner and I weren't as keen on the lemon wedges, but when cut up and eaten with other salad items they added a nice zing to the salad. The capers also added a sharp tang when you ate one of those. It was the first time I knowing had endive and witlof in a salad. If I had to make a comparison, I'd say that you could easily substitute rocket and cabbage for these ingredients if you had trouble finding them.

The fish was fantastic! The spices fried up into a nice crust, and the aniseed flavour of the fennel nicely complemented the Nile perch.

Ease - This meal was fairly easy to throw together - it was harder to find the ingredients than put them together to make a meal! 

If you're keen to get more fish in your diet, this is a very tasty way to prepare it with little effort.
Time - The prep time took a little longer than stated in the recipe, but as my partner pointed out, half of the prep is already done before the recipe starts. The ingredients list the spices already ground, the endive washed and the avocado sliced. It is getting the food at this level of readiness that adds the extra time to the recipe.

Would I make it again?

Yes! We had endive, witlof and avocado left over, so my partner was planning to make the salad for an Australia Day BBQ we had on the weekend. (Unfortunately for our guests, we ran out of time, but did have three other salads to serve them.) 

Turkey salad with Chilli Jam and Toasted Coconut.

The salad ingredients awaiting dressing

Substitutions / Omissions / Deletions:

As mentioned in the menu post, we opted to not purchase pre-roasted turkey, but to use some chicken breast instead. We thought we had some in the freezer, but when I couldn't find any, I bought some fresh chicken breast that was on special. The chicken breast was cooked in a non-stick frypan without any fat or oils.

We only purchased a quarter of a cabbage when shopping, and used only about half of that. We still had leftovers.

I accidentally bought desiccated coconut instead of shredded coconut, so that was used instead.

We only used two shallots for the dressing, and only 2tsp of dried chilli flakes.

Prep tips: 

Given that the whole idea of eating salads in summer is that you don't need to turn the oven on, my partner opted to toast the coconut in a dry pan over the stove.

I'm not a fan of finely chopping anything, particularly shallots or onions, so I use a Tupperware Turbo Chef to dice these up.

We tend to use Microplane graters a lot in our kitchen for smaller items such as palm sugar and garlic.

The limes were juiced by using a small hand-held lever citrus juicer (pictured below) which makes quick work of the limes, and keeps any pith or seed out of the juice.

Things to do differently next time: 

Not much that we would do differently next time - however the magazine does have a suggestion of using whole prawns instead of poultry.

Summary:
Taste  - This was a very tasty Thai influenced salad. My partner loves Asian flavours, so really enjoyed this meal, and even I devoured my serve as I found the salad delicious. My partner raved about this to his colleagues, and they wanted to try some. Luckily there are some leftover for him to take into work!
Ease  - Another easy salad recipe - by toasting the coconut on the stove, it is easier to keep an eye on it so you can remove it from the heat when it is all golden brown.
Time - Again, I am not sure I agree with the time given by the magazine. The picking of coriander and mint leaves took quite a bit of time, and by toasting the coconut on the stove, it required someone to watch over it. It is possible that if the oven was used, then more prep could have been done during that time. Again, if we didn't have such a gadget heavy kitchen we would have taken much longer with the prep.

Would I make it again?

Yes, although I wouldn't like to eat this too frequently as my preferred tastes lie in different directions. My partner would probably make this a bit of a staple over summer, when he likes to eat a lot of Asian inspired salads. This would also be a great meal to make use of leftover turkey roast after Christmas. 

Menu and shopping list for week - from Jan 06 edition of magazine.

Menu

1. Pan fried fish with lemon, caper and avocado salad
2. Turkey salad with chilli jam and toasted coconut
3. Ham, bocconcini, artichoke and basil calzones
4. Barbecued steaks with anchovy butter and potato salad
5. Pork, apple and fennel salad with redcurrant dressing

Thoughts and ideas: 

My partner commented that he didn't find this menu piqued his interest much - and I wasn't sure as there were a lot of salads. 

Shopping

We decided to skip getting the pre-roasted turkey, and use some chicken from our freezer. We find the roasted turkey in the deli tends to look a little fake, and lacks a little bit in texture.

Similarly, we also had some fish in our freezer to use instead of the red snapper.

We have plenty of ham on the bone sitting in the fridge that was bought on special post-Christmas.

My partner loves steaks, so buys a lot on special to freeze, so he was set for the steaks. I prefer small lean steaks, so we picked some of those up instead of what was on the list.

We tend to have a weakness for roast pork and crackling, so we picked up a small pork roast, rather than pre-roasted meat, and had a roast for dinner that night to use the leftover roast for the menu.

We only use extra virgin olive oil, so no need to pick up regular olive oil.

We had trouble finding any red currants, witlof, endive, radicchio, and kaffir lime leaves.

Shopping list:

Pantry ·         Fennel Seeds ·         Coriander Seeds ·         Olive Oil ·         Extra Virgin Olive Oil ·         Peanut Oil ·         Dried Chilli Flakes ·         Fish Sauce ·         Caster Sugar ·         Red Wine Vinegar ·         Apple Cider Vinegar Supermarket ·         Small Jar baby capers ·         Small packet shredded coconut ·         Palm sugar or brown sugar ·         1 pkt dried yeast ·         1kg packet bread flour ·         50g parmesan ·         18 cherry bocconcini ·         4 char-grilled artichokes ·         1 can anchovy fillets ·         50g butter ·         20 Kalamata olives ·         1 jar redcurrant jelly Fruit & Vegetables ·         2 witlof ·         1 small curly endive ·         1 small radicchio ·         1 avocado ·         5 lemons ·         1 orange ·         1/2 white cabbage or 1 mini cabbage ·         2 bunches mint ·         2 bunches coriander ·         8 kaffir lime leaves ·         3 shallots ·         1 bulb garlic ·         4 limes ·         100g baby rocket ·         1 vine ripened tomato ·         1 bunch basil ·         1 small Spanish onion ·         400g kipfler potatoes ·         2 bunches flat leaf parsley ·         1 pink lady apple ·         2 small bulbs fennel, with fronds ·         1 bunch watercress ·         1 punnet redcurrants (or frozen) Butcher/Fish ·         4 x 200g snapper fillets ·         200g roast turkey ·         150g piece ham ·         4 x 250g Scotch Fillets ·         75g roast pork crackling and 200g roast pork